


too late to learn from experience, too late to wonder how to finish first

by la_victorienne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-22
Updated: 2010-08-22
Packaged: 2018-10-15 10:46:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10555024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: Of all the things Eames expects to happen when they land, this is the last.





	

It's not like he has a plan, landing at LAX. He hasn't had any definite plans for years, living job to job and city to city, always one step ahead, and the Fischer job is no different from any other, except for in the ways that it is. Achieving the impossible. Pinwheels, three levels, limbo. Arthur, standing in the rain.

Fundamentally different, then.

He's standing in line for a taxi when he feels the new weight in his jacket pocket, fishes out a key to an apartment on a pyramid-shaped fob. They met in Cairo. Arthur wore white linen. Eames wore purple paisley and tweed.

He wonders if this means he's been forgiven.

And then there he is, standing at the door of Arthur's apartment in Brentwood, and he has to grope in his pocket for his poker chip to be sure he's not still dreaming.

The weight of it is comforting, the grooves worn and familiar. Eames turns the key in the door, half-expecting an empty flat, a sharp cruel taunt, a bullet in the neck. Instead, there are high ceilings and hardwood floors and jazz music playing everywhere, like Arthur is normal, like this is normal, and Eames thinks he might be forgiven after all. For a moment he just stands, taking it all in, and almost says "honey, I'm home."

Arthur appears in the hallway before he can say anything anyway, jacket discarded and sleeves rolled up, and smiles in that way he has, sheepish and smug all at the same time, and Eames couldn't form sentences if he wanted to.

"Hi," he manages inanely.

"Hi," Arthur replies, and he's taking two steps forward and Eames is crossing the distance and dropping his bags and Arthur's hands are on his face and they're kissing, _finally,_ the kind of kiss that tastes of apology and regret and the nearness of loss, and Eames feels himself going weak in the knees like a schoolgirl he forged once, all pigtails and flushed cheeks. But Arthur's walking backwards and Eames will always follow, wherever Arthur leads, though he's pretty sure he has an idea of their destination this time by the hands on his jacket and the fingers on his buttons. This is all Arthur, the single-minded focus, the sure and even steps, backward though they may be. Eames is helpless, pulled by Arthur's magnetism and his own profound relief, the sensation of rightness washing over him at last.

"We did it," he mumbles into Arthur's mouth, only to have the words bitten and swallowed away.

"Hmm," Arthur responds eloquently, and if Eames weren't already hard enough to cut diamonds he bloody well is now, and no mistake. "Did what," Arthur pants. "Pretty sure we did a lot of things in those ten hours, Jack, so you'll have to clarify."

Eames almost laughs at that, but it comes out as a breathless groan. "You do love your specificity, don't you, Arthur."

Arthur kicks open the door to the bedroom instead of responding, and for a moment Eames is stopped short. The room looks like Arthur, of course, what he can see of it, but it looks like him too, in the colors and the brightness and the patterned rug upon the floor.

"We made it home," he finally says, even as his fingers undo Arthur's braces and push shirt and waistcoat to the floor.

Arthur, to his credit, doesn't say a word, just pulls Eames until they're falling, landing with a whump atop each other on Arthur's duvet.

It was never like this, before. Before the Fischer job, before Mombasa and Monte Carlo, before Arthur left and Eames let him go. Before all that it was hot and fast and over too soon, as everything they ever did had been. Now it is all slow, languorous touches and a warmth that builds from the pit of Eames' belly and fills him tip to toe, and it baffles him that they missed this the first time around, makes him ache for more.

None of it matters anyway when Arthur wraps his hand around Eames' cock and tugs like he's not being paid enough attention, because inner monologue or not they are still having sex, and thinking can wait. Eames rolls to cover Arthur's body with his own, already biting a bruise into the bend of his shoulder, and commands himself sharply to stop thinking and start _doing_ , all puns absolutely intended. Later he will have the audacity to ask a number of stupid questions and receive equally as many sharply worded answers, will rumple Arthur's hair for the glare he receives in response, will go hunting for food in Arthur's cupboards and find nothing of value but fuzzy cheese and mushrooms in a tin. He will order takeaway wearing only Arthur's dog tags and a smile and dodge almost everything thrown at him from among the pillows, everything except the pair of underpants that land on his head because it will not actually kill them to be silly for once. He will ask if things changed while they were still under and Arthur will avoid the question, ducking his head to eat his samosa in the way that means yes. He will switch places with Arthur six times in the featherbed until they remember their own sides and the other's habits and spoon up next to each other in the dark, finding the rhythms they never quite got right the first time. He will make Arthur promise to visit Cobb and the kids, to close the window next time, to make the coffee in the morning, and he will promise folded trousers and alphabetized books and all the cooking in return. He will never call Arthur darling in jest again, but always in absolute seriousness, in the moments when Arthur's imagination surprises him. Later, he will do all this. Later.

For now there is only Arthur, warm and pliant and waiting, and Eames would be a fool to think about anything else.

Eames has been many things in his life. None of them are a fool.


End file.
